BOOKSHELF

The Universe Unveiled: Instruments and Images Through History, edited by Bruce Stephenson, Marvin Bolt, and Anna Felicity Friedman (Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum/Cambridge University Press, 2000; $29.95)

Since the late fifteenth century, humans have been devising elegant and innovative technologies for measuring and mapping Earth, navigating, keeping time, and observing the heavens.

The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850, by Brian Fagan (Basic Books/Perseus, 2001; $26)

While documenting the rapid climate shift known as the little ice age, archaeologist Fagan traces its effects on history and human experience, from the demise of Viking colonies in Greenland to the Irish potato famine.

The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms, by Connie Barlow (Basic Books/Perseus, 2001; $26)

Barlow examines the idea of "missing partners" in nature, focusing on the many fruits that evolved their adaptive features during millions of years of association with the great mammals that fed on them. Most of these so-called megafauna went extinct 13,000 years ago, leaving the plants behind as anachronistic survivors in today's world.

No Apparent Danger: The True Story of Volcanic Disaster at Galeras and Nevado del Ruiz, by Victoria Bruce (HarperCollins, 2001; $26)

Surviving Galeras, by Stanley Williams and Fen Montaigne (Houghton Mifflin, 2001; $25)

Linking the disastrous events of two recent eruptions in southern Colombia, Bruce, a science reporter, describes the harrowing ordeal of those who experienced the disasters firsthand and survived. Williams, leader of a volcanological expedition to Galeras during the 1993 blowout, recounts his own close encounter with death. Both stories create a framework for exploring modern volcanology.

Birthplace of the Winds: Storming Alaska's Islands of Fire and Ice, by Jon Bowermaster (National Geographic Books, 2001; $26)

Bowermaster writes about a twenty-five-day kayaking expedition in the Aleutians (the island chain off Alaska designated a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO) and produces an informative account of a largely unknown area, volcanically active and extraordinarily rich in fauna.

From Ellis Island to JFK: New York's Two Great Waves of Immigration, by Nancy Foner (Yale University Press/Russell Sage Foundation, 2000; $29.95)

By comparing factors such as race, gender, ties to the home country, and the role of education, anthropologist Foner contrasts New York City's immigrant experience at the beginning of the 1900s with the second influx at century's end. Today's immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Jamaica, and China are again changing the face of the city.

On Fertile Ground: A Natural History of Human Reproduction, by Peter T. Ellison (Harvard University Press, 2001; $27.95)

As an anthropologist viewing human reproduction from multiple perspectives--anthropology, ecology, and evolutionary biology--Ellison answers such questions as why human birth is so difficult, why females menstruate, and why males mature later than females.

The books mentioned are usually available in the Museum Shop or via the Museum's Web site, www.amnh.org.